Episode 13: Journey from San Juan
Oct. 9th, 2025 08:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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aliassmithjonesThe episode opens (after the teaser) with our two heroes rounding up cattle, which apparently don’t belong to anyone. Or at least that’s what Heyes claims when two dodgy-looking Mexicans come over and say, in a nudge nudge wink wink sort of way, that someone is going to be very unhappy if they keep rounding up “his” cattle, and that some lives may turn out to be very short.
This not very veiled threat doesn’t seem to disturb either of the boys, not even Heyes, who is normally keen not to win any Darwin Awards. Heyes has been to the barber’s since we last saw him and is now sporting a very youthful-looking fringe. Or, as the Americans say, bangs, which is certainly more appropriate for a cowboy. At all events, as the boys shut away the last few cattle for the night, they grumble about how much work cowboying is and mention that the job is just cover for a different, more dangerous one. More dangerous than getting threatened by murderous Mexicans with bandito moustaches? Surely Heyes’s danger radar should be pinging away by now?
The boys go back to their camping wagon, which apparently is called a “chuck wagon” in American. Heyes climbs in and then jumps out again as something inside lets out a shriek. A young woman, Michelle Monet, has hidden in the wagon on the frankly inexplicable assumption that the owners wouldn’t ever be coming back. There’s a bit of weird dialogue about whether she can be an American if she’s got a French accent (she’s from New Orleans, her family’s lived there for three generations, I reckon that makes her as American as anyone else on this show), and then Michelle explains that she’s on the run from a sea captain who offered her free passage home to New Orleans only to turn rapey once they were at sea. Michelle sensibly jumped ship in San Juan, from which we will presumably at some point journey in order to fulfil the prophecy contained in the episode title, but she is still being pursued by the captain and she doesn’t have any money. She also seems to be labouring under the delusion that no men other than the sea captain have rapist tendencies, hence the hiding in someone else’s chuck wagon idea. Luckily for her, Heyes and the Kid, for all their outlaw backgrounds, are not the sort to take advantage of a young woman on her own. Well, not unless it's consensual taking-advantage-of, anyway. They accompany her back to town and the Kid even offers to pay for a room at the hotel for her. If I were Michelle and had just learned the hard way that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, I would probably be more suspicious of the Kid’s offer, but she takes it entirely at face value. While the Kid is off paying, Heyes makes a rape joke and is then surprised when Michelle, who is currently fleeing from sexual assault, doesn’t think it’s funny. Man, I do not miss the 70s one little bit. And, indeed, the Kid also turns out to be harbouring dishonourable intentions towards Michelle. He and Heyes even discuss it, once Michelle’s out of earshot. Eugh, I’m not liking this episode much, it has a flavour of misogyny to it that even the very enjoyable scenes between the boys can’t quite disguise. Still, the Kid does at least stop short of having non-consensual intentions, and Michelle is clearly over 18 and can choose who she wants to snog. I still think there’s a power imbalance here that makes the whole thing slightly icky, though.
While the Kid is happily falling for Michelle, who on the Drip Scale scores somewhere between Margaret Chapman and Annabelle, Heyes is acting as a honey trap for the owner of the saloon, one Blanche Graham, who compared with the Kid’s flings definitely qualifies as an older woman and who, unfortunately for me, I like very much. She’s got her head screwed on right, she’s got oodles of sexual self-confidence, and she gives the boys some excellent advice about not trying to pinch cattle from Mexican bandits. She’s also very nice to Michelle and despite having an evident – and entirely justified - lack of faith in her talents as an entertainer agrees, under pressure from the boys, to let her sing in her saloon for tips.
Heyes once again displays an uncharacteristic lack of interest in self-preservation and, over the Kid’s objections, has them back rustling the bandido’s cattle the next day. El Clavo, for such is the boss bandit’s name, chases after them with his men and manages to shoot the Kid. Unfortunately, the episode does absolutely nothing with this exciting development. The Kid gets strapped up – El Clavo will subsequently do a version of the old “I was aiming for his head” joke, but the line is so badly written, he can’t help but fluff it - and that’s it, the injury is never mentioned again. Instead of some decent – or, indeed, any – hurt/comfort, we are treated to a sequence of Michelle singing in the saloon. She’s so bad, I cringe with embarrassment, and my fremdschämen only increases when the boys join in. Everybody else in the saloon completely ignores her, which is polite of them.
The next day Heyes, who is really angling for a Darwin Award - I can’t think what’s got into him - takes them back for more cattle rustling. This time they aren’t shot at but instead are taken to see El Clavo who Heyes, rather to my surprise, easily talks into letting them take the cattle by pretending they would be worth $30 a head in the US and offering El Clavo 50% of this. El Clavo does some impressively quick mental arithmetic and agrees. The whole cattle sub-plot takes up a huge amount of time and generally seems like a phenomenal amount of effort and danger for what is only supposed to be a cover story, but I can endure stock footage of cows better than I can Michelle’s singing, so I suck it up.
It transpires that the real reason Heyes and Curry are in San Juan is to persuade Blanche to come back to the US with them. Apparently, she killed her husband, and the dead man’s father wants to see her face trial, but isn’t willing to have her brought back by force, so the boys’ job is to persuade her to accompany them of her own free will. The hackles go up on the back of my neck at this. I LIKE Blanche. Maybe she had a perfectly good reason for killing her husband. Maybe he was abusive, or cheated on her and gave her syphilis, or gambled away her entire fortune, or threatened to have her committed to a mental asylum so he’d be free to marry someone who could give him children - the possibilities are endless. But Heyes and Curry know and like the dad, so obviously the son must be a bang-up citizen and Blanche an evil murderess who deserves to hang. This information does, I confess, give a whole new frisson to the scenes of Heyes cold-bloodedly flirting with Blanche, a frisson which reaches new heights when Blanche discovers their true identities. I get a great kick out of watching these two highly intelligent, expert liars pretend to seduce each other, each believing they’re the only one who’s faking it.
There isn’t anything else to enjoy, though. Blanche asks Michelle to find out if Smith and Jones are actually Heyes and Curry, and Michelle, who has never heard of female solidarity, immediately spills the beans to the Kid. The Kid starts packing. Into his tiny saddle bags he puts some books and what appears to be a small grey teddy bear – the ASJ book is regrettably silent on whether Ben Murphy brought along his own teddy as a joke, or whether the Kid has been carting a cuddly toy around with him all this time. Heyes gets all excited and says now they’ve got new bait to use on Blanche – “Us!” Hang on, Heyes, I thought you were the bait all along? Blanche certainly wasn’t going to be persuaded to come on that cattle drive because she loves the smell of cow dung, was she?
Everybody heads for the US, with Blanche keenly anticipating the $20,000 she’ll get when they cross the border. El Clavo and his men follow along after them. I have no idea why, if they were going to come along anyway, El Clavo didn’t just drive the cattle up to America and sell them himself. He gets a message telling him that the cows are only worth $8 a head – cheer up, El Clavo, you’re not the only one who’s been lied to by Heyes – but the Kid has the cattle stampede in his direction and that sorts him out.
Everybody else goes on to the US, where Blanche tries to have Heyes and the Kid arrested at the border, but the sheriff arrests her instead, and her ex-husband’s father pops out of the tiny office to say thank you to the boys. The patriarchy locks shoulders again and I pound my tiny fists in impotent fury.
In a town somewhere, the Kid and Michelle enjoy a farewell smooch, while Heyes, in a really weird shot, watches them from the other side of a stagecoach through the window and open door. God knows what the point of that was. The Kid, I must say, seems genuinely disappointed that his earlier choices mean he can’t ever be with Michelle, but I can’t share his heartbreak, serenely confident as I am that by the next episode he will have forgotten she ever existed. Heyes is really nice to him about it, though.
In summary, much as I enjoyed Heyes’s bad-faith flirtation with Blanche, I could have done with a lot less Michelle and a lot fewer cattle. One for completists only.
This not very veiled threat doesn’t seem to disturb either of the boys, not even Heyes, who is normally keen not to win any Darwin Awards. Heyes has been to the barber’s since we last saw him and is now sporting a very youthful-looking fringe. Or, as the Americans say, bangs, which is certainly more appropriate for a cowboy. At all events, as the boys shut away the last few cattle for the night, they grumble about how much work cowboying is and mention that the job is just cover for a different, more dangerous one. More dangerous than getting threatened by murderous Mexicans with bandito moustaches? Surely Heyes’s danger radar should be pinging away by now?
The boys go back to their camping wagon, which apparently is called a “chuck wagon” in American. Heyes climbs in and then jumps out again as something inside lets out a shriek. A young woman, Michelle Monet, has hidden in the wagon on the frankly inexplicable assumption that the owners wouldn’t ever be coming back. There’s a bit of weird dialogue about whether she can be an American if she’s got a French accent (she’s from New Orleans, her family’s lived there for three generations, I reckon that makes her as American as anyone else on this show), and then Michelle explains that she’s on the run from a sea captain who offered her free passage home to New Orleans only to turn rapey once they were at sea. Michelle sensibly jumped ship in San Juan, from which we will presumably at some point journey in order to fulfil the prophecy contained in the episode title, but she is still being pursued by the captain and she doesn’t have any money. She also seems to be labouring under the delusion that no men other than the sea captain have rapist tendencies, hence the hiding in someone else’s chuck wagon idea. Luckily for her, Heyes and the Kid, for all their outlaw backgrounds, are not the sort to take advantage of a young woman on her own. Well, not unless it's consensual taking-advantage-of, anyway. They accompany her back to town and the Kid even offers to pay for a room at the hotel for her. If I were Michelle and had just learned the hard way that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, I would probably be more suspicious of the Kid’s offer, but she takes it entirely at face value. While the Kid is off paying, Heyes makes a rape joke and is then surprised when Michelle, who is currently fleeing from sexual assault, doesn’t think it’s funny. Man, I do not miss the 70s one little bit. And, indeed, the Kid also turns out to be harbouring dishonourable intentions towards Michelle. He and Heyes even discuss it, once Michelle’s out of earshot. Eugh, I’m not liking this episode much, it has a flavour of misogyny to it that even the very enjoyable scenes between the boys can’t quite disguise. Still, the Kid does at least stop short of having non-consensual intentions, and Michelle is clearly over 18 and can choose who she wants to snog. I still think there’s a power imbalance here that makes the whole thing slightly icky, though.
While the Kid is happily falling for Michelle, who on the Drip Scale scores somewhere between Margaret Chapman and Annabelle, Heyes is acting as a honey trap for the owner of the saloon, one Blanche Graham, who compared with the Kid’s flings definitely qualifies as an older woman and who, unfortunately for me, I like very much. She’s got her head screwed on right, she’s got oodles of sexual self-confidence, and she gives the boys some excellent advice about not trying to pinch cattle from Mexican bandits. She’s also very nice to Michelle and despite having an evident – and entirely justified - lack of faith in her talents as an entertainer agrees, under pressure from the boys, to let her sing in her saloon for tips.
Heyes once again displays an uncharacteristic lack of interest in self-preservation and, over the Kid’s objections, has them back rustling the bandido’s cattle the next day. El Clavo, for such is the boss bandit’s name, chases after them with his men and manages to shoot the Kid. Unfortunately, the episode does absolutely nothing with this exciting development. The Kid gets strapped up – El Clavo will subsequently do a version of the old “I was aiming for his head” joke, but the line is so badly written, he can’t help but fluff it - and that’s it, the injury is never mentioned again. Instead of some decent – or, indeed, any – hurt/comfort, we are treated to a sequence of Michelle singing in the saloon. She’s so bad, I cringe with embarrassment, and my fremdschämen only increases when the boys join in. Everybody else in the saloon completely ignores her, which is polite of them.
The next day Heyes, who is really angling for a Darwin Award - I can’t think what’s got into him - takes them back for more cattle rustling. This time they aren’t shot at but instead are taken to see El Clavo who Heyes, rather to my surprise, easily talks into letting them take the cattle by pretending they would be worth $30 a head in the US and offering El Clavo 50% of this. El Clavo does some impressively quick mental arithmetic and agrees. The whole cattle sub-plot takes up a huge amount of time and generally seems like a phenomenal amount of effort and danger for what is only supposed to be a cover story, but I can endure stock footage of cows better than I can Michelle’s singing, so I suck it up.
It transpires that the real reason Heyes and Curry are in San Juan is to persuade Blanche to come back to the US with them. Apparently, she killed her husband, and the dead man’s father wants to see her face trial, but isn’t willing to have her brought back by force, so the boys’ job is to persuade her to accompany them of her own free will. The hackles go up on the back of my neck at this. I LIKE Blanche. Maybe she had a perfectly good reason for killing her husband. Maybe he was abusive, or cheated on her and gave her syphilis, or gambled away her entire fortune, or threatened to have her committed to a mental asylum so he’d be free to marry someone who could give him children - the possibilities are endless. But Heyes and Curry know and like the dad, so obviously the son must be a bang-up citizen and Blanche an evil murderess who deserves to hang. This information does, I confess, give a whole new frisson to the scenes of Heyes cold-bloodedly flirting with Blanche, a frisson which reaches new heights when Blanche discovers their true identities. I get a great kick out of watching these two highly intelligent, expert liars pretend to seduce each other, each believing they’re the only one who’s faking it.
There isn’t anything else to enjoy, though. Blanche asks Michelle to find out if Smith and Jones are actually Heyes and Curry, and Michelle, who has never heard of female solidarity, immediately spills the beans to the Kid. The Kid starts packing. Into his tiny saddle bags he puts some books and what appears to be a small grey teddy bear – the ASJ book is regrettably silent on whether Ben Murphy brought along his own teddy as a joke, or whether the Kid has been carting a cuddly toy around with him all this time. Heyes gets all excited and says now they’ve got new bait to use on Blanche – “Us!” Hang on, Heyes, I thought you were the bait all along? Blanche certainly wasn’t going to be persuaded to come on that cattle drive because she loves the smell of cow dung, was she?
Everybody heads for the US, with Blanche keenly anticipating the $20,000 she’ll get when they cross the border. El Clavo and his men follow along after them. I have no idea why, if they were going to come along anyway, El Clavo didn’t just drive the cattle up to America and sell them himself. He gets a message telling him that the cows are only worth $8 a head – cheer up, El Clavo, you’re not the only one who’s been lied to by Heyes – but the Kid has the cattle stampede in his direction and that sorts him out.
Everybody else goes on to the US, where Blanche tries to have Heyes and the Kid arrested at the border, but the sheriff arrests her instead, and her ex-husband’s father pops out of the tiny office to say thank you to the boys. The patriarchy locks shoulders again and I pound my tiny fists in impotent fury.
In a town somewhere, the Kid and Michelle enjoy a farewell smooch, while Heyes, in a really weird shot, watches them from the other side of a stagecoach through the window and open door. God knows what the point of that was. The Kid, I must say, seems genuinely disappointed that his earlier choices mean he can’t ever be with Michelle, but I can’t share his heartbreak, serenely confident as I am that by the next episode he will have forgotten she ever existed. Heyes is really nice to him about it, though.
In summary, much as I enjoyed Heyes’s bad-faith flirtation with Blanche, I could have done with a lot less Michelle and a lot fewer cattle. One for completists only.
